Making the most of The Great Outdoors:- Cycling- Backpacking- Walking- Camping and Caravanning
in 'Eva the Eriba' my Eriba Touring Troll 540.
Travelling at the Speed of Life because everyday is a holiday...........

Saturday, 5 March 2016

Hospital once again..!!

At the beginning of December Anne and I took a bus into Plymouth and on the journey the bus stopped at Derriford Hospital. I joked with Anne at the time that that it was one of the few hospitals whose Emergency Department I hadn't been admitted to yet.... This was obviously a tongue in cheek statement based on my medical history since retirement...Long term readers of this blog will understand where I am coming from, with a list of serious health situations covering everything from.... cancer....temporary loss of sight in one eye....blood clots....aortic aneurysm....atrial fibrillation and more.....Before I retired I had never had any major medical problems and have always kept fit and healthy only ever being a very very light drinker with on average about two 330ml bottles of light beer being consumed in a month, if at all.... I did smoke for a few years as a stupid young man but stopped overnight when I realised what an idiot I was being. I have now not smoked for over forty years....Anyway just a few hours after I made my last blog post I remembered that throw away comment that I had made to Anne. I woke up in total agony with a pain coming from the right hand side of my lower back and radiating to the top of my shoulder... Also I was finding it very difficult to breath....I took some pain killers and had a very uncomfortable night.... The next morning Anne took me into the ED at Derriford Hospital (another hospital ticked off the list).I was admitted with a temperature of 40.5c (104f I think) and my blood pressure was off the scale at 244/102 which I may add is far higher than I have ever known either to be.I had a range of tests and scans including a nuclear scan which involved inhaling some radioactive material .....It was originally thought that I might have had a blood clot on my lung, but as I moved through the tests and scans it was decided that a lung infection was more than likely and this had caused my right lung to collapse hence the agony that I was in.......Anyway after two days and one night at the hospital and some first class care from the wonderful doctors and nursing staff I was finally allowed to return to Eva the Eriba...I am feeling very weak and fragile....cannot walk far yet....and have been instructed to take life very easy for the next week or two.....I am also a bit depressed by it all following all the medical situations that have gone on before..... It sometime feels that this is going to be the ongoing pattern of my retirement and it certainly concerns me regarding my plans to travel further afield as we had planned to do....I can't help but wonder what the outcome would have been if we had decided to spend our winter season in Spain or Italy for instance.....I will need to give this some careful thought as this wasn't anything caused by a pre-existing medical condition.This was something new and out of the blue... One minute I felt fine the next in agony, all a bit scary really....

Thanks for the get well comments and best wishes guys.....My breathing is improving and I am following the breathing exercise regime that I was given to the letter....Feeling a lot better now than I felt a week ago...

Sorry to hear about your recent problem and hospitlization. Glad your out of the Hospital, I wonder if a warmer dryer climate might be good for you. A lot of retirees in the US head for Phoneix, warmer and drier.Good luck to you, I'll be checking in.

*mrbill*Thanks for your visit and comments mrbill....We had thought of wintering in Southern Spain but then that might well have presented different problems regarding language etc...Not so important on a general day to day basis...but if you find yourself with a serious medical problem and can't speak the language it could make things difficult....Still food for thought.